


Outside the Eggshell

by von_gelmini



Series: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4 [4]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Body Horror, Catheterization, Deprogramming/Reprogramming via Sensory Deprivation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemas, Grief/Mourning, Kidnapping, M/M, Peter Parker Whump, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Revenge, Sensory Deprivation, Superior Iron Man Vol 1. (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gelmini/pseuds/von_gelmini
Summary: Peter-199999 was about as close to perfect as Tony had found in all of his searching. He would break easily, but Tony only wanted to shatter his core personality so far. He didn’t want to ruin the parts of him that were already so much likehisPeter’s were.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Series: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632193
Comments: 10
Kudos: 146
Collections: MCU Kink Bingo Round 4





	Outside the Eggshell

**Author's Note:**

> For the MCU Kink Bingo. Square: Sensory Deprivation
> 
> * * *
> 
> The story stands alone. It isn't _exactly_ a sequel. Some people asked for a version from an opposite POV to [Rebuilding That Which Was Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923094). This story is a BIG spoiler for the other one.
> 
> * * *
> 
> The enema/catheterization comes as a part of body care when the body is not allowed to take care of himself. It's not sexual. 
> 
> Everything in the story can be considered Non-Con, no matter how innocuous, given that almost the entire thing takes place post-kidnapping. But the only sexual part of the Non-Con is touching, fondling, and kissing.

Tony Stark mourned and the world suffered for it. He had always been a capricious ruler of his unofficial kingdom, but after Peter Parker’s death, he was unabashedly cruel. 

Peter had been murdered by those who resisted his rule. By the ones Peter used to hero-worship as a child. By the _Avengers._ They were the first problem he attacked.

While he worked on his revenge, he delegated the rule of his world to middle management. Absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but it has nothing on the corruption of _petty_ power. Finally given a touch of authority, they set to making policies that made the populace’s ‘misery index’ skyrocket. At least Tony only picked on a few victims at a time.

The Avengers fell.

His family killed in an attack by an 'unknown' villain, Clint was the first of them to break. His personality darkened and he turned vigilante. It was an easy matter to convince him that it was the chaos which still existed in places that resisted Tony’s rule was to blame for their deaths. To make sure that there was no chaos left in the world, it was easy to convince Ronin to work for him.

Natasha could always read the lay of the land. She wouldn’t betray the other Avengers, but neither would she stay with them. She sought employment where her friend had found it. Tony was content to leave her her secrets. He didn’t need them. 

Some of the Avengers it was necessary to simply eliminate. His old friend, Rhodes, had turned against him years ago. He let him wander out of respect to their former friendship. But that was before he was complicit in Peter’s death. Out of that respect though, his death was swift and painless.

Dr. Banner could be lured with the promise of unlimited funding research to get his _green_ problem under his control. That ‘the other guy’ wound up under Tony’s control was an ‘unexpected’ side-effect. 

Thor… it turns out that it _is_ possible to murder God. Especially when his brother helps.

The _lesser_ Avengers… they were _lesser_ for a reason. They joined Tony in ruling the world, or they joined as Tony's subjects in his labs.

Which left the captain of righteousness, the leader of the Avengers, Captain America. 

But Tony had an ace up his sleeve. Or an ace in cold storage in Siberia. HYDRA had been an easy take-over during Tony’s years as inferior Iron Man. He destroyed enough of it with his former teammates to satisfy them and kept enough of it in his back pocket to satisfy himself. Once he stopped playing human, he destroyed the leadership and the name then simply took over the rest. Including control of _the Asset._

Rogers was nothing if not predictable. He was reluctant to sell his morality to save his friend, but Tony let enough of Bucky slip through Winter to tantalize him. With the promise of more. With the promise of Bucky’s freedom from HYDRA’s mind control. Captain America and Iron Man once again fought side by side. Though while Tony’s plan developed, he kept that fight to those who were clearly evil by Cap’s standards.

Downstairs, while his team worked on de-conditioning Bucky, Tony worked on re-conditioning him in a very specific way. It was easy to develop the friendship he felt for Steve into reciprocating the repressed amorous love that Steve had for him. The obedience he had to HYDRA was transferred to Tony. As was the twisted form of love, including sexual love, that he felt for his former handler. Steve, of course, would never know that he shared Bucky’s body with Tony in that way. Winter was put under Bucky’s, and Tony’s, control. And Bucky Barnes was given back to his friend, and now lover, Steve Rogers. 

They both were unrelenting in enforcing Tony’s rule.

The Avengers repaid for their crimes, Tony was bored again. Which never boded well for the populace of Earth.

When breaking his toys wasn’t distraction enough, he worked on the difficult problems that science and mathematics still hadn’t solved. 

The Riemann Hypothesis only took a few hours. 

One week later, he grew tired of the latest purge of insurgents (their tactics were _really_ getting dull.) After dinner, having solved P=NP, Tony had access to the world’s cryptocurrency and all the secrets stored using symmetric ciphers. The consequences of _that_ occupied him, to the world’s horror, for three months. 

P=NP solved almost all the unsolved ciphers in the world. Almost. Kryptos took him a full two days. The world breathed a sigh of relief.

The answer found, the sighs of relief turned to cries of pain once again. 

But no matter what problem Tony set his mind to during the day, his nights were filled with longing and sorrow. He had moved out of his room — _their_ room — after Peter’s memorial. He had three of the guest suites converted into his new bedroom. He hardly ever slept there though because he hardly ever slept. When his body flagged under the weight of days, even weeks, of exhaustion, his armor revitalized him. He wouldn’t let himself sleep. Peter came to him in his sleep. And while the dreams were heaven, waking alone in his bed was hell. 

‘Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again’. Yeah, fuck you Marcus Aurelius. Time is a problem. Problems can be solved. So the world went unnoticed as Tony set to solving it. Which, of course, he did.

He touched that water more than twice. He touched it over and over and over. But always, something went wrong. He wasn’t able to bring _his_ Peter home. As a scientist, Tony knew that every failure was a success. His failures taught him much. The most important thing he learned was that there was a _multiverse._ Every attempt he made to bring Peter back caused a split in the timelines and an entire new universe was created by his failure to do so. 

If there was a multiverse, there were _other_ Peters. Peters who weren’t _his_ Peter and could, if his new theory was correct, be brought home. He could find _a_ Peter who was _like_ his Peter.

There were more failures and other ’verse’s Peters were left broken and ultimately dead. They looked like his Peter though and he couldn’t bring himself to bury them to rot. They were his image. He had the ashes of each incorporated into statues of _his_ Peter and set them around the world to be worshiped as he had worshiped the boy who was their likeness.

As with all failures, Tony learned. The personality of whatever Peter he brought home had to be stripped away so that _his_ Peter could be imprinted on the shell. The most encouraging studies he read led him in the direction of sensory deprivation. But the researchers hadn’t been bold enough. They always stopped before total personality disintegration happened. 

Not wanting to waste more multiverse-Peters (he had no idea how many of them were out there) he experimented on his more troublesome subjects. They had the most _personality_ to break. More attempts. More failures. More learning. 

Instead of kidnapping the Peters he found, Tony observed them. First, from a distance. Then, wearing brown contacts (or whatever color that ’verse’s Tony’s eyes were) he interacted with Peter. Casually, then more closely. Even intimately, if that Peter and Tony had become intimate at the age _his_ Peter had been. 

Most were not anything like what he was looking for. Even if his sensory deprivation reprogramming techniques worked perfectly. There were differences in body once the clothes came off. There were differences in the powers the spider bite gave him. There were differences in deeply held core values that reprogramming never worked on with his non-Peter subjects. 

There was _one_ who was close to what he was looking for. Peter from Earth-199999 was meek and shy. He was a genius who was holding himself back and who was held back even further by the education system he was in. He was just waiting for someone, his Mr. Stark, to fully give him the opportunity he was lacking. Instead the inferior version of himself only dangled the occasional bit ‘lab assistant’ time in front of Peter’s eager and curious nose. And the boy was achingly _ripe._ Just like his Peter had been when he took him. This world’s Mr. Stark had to be a fucking eunuch not to have recognized how desperately Peter wanted him.

It was difficult for Tony to even _observe_ Peter. The boy was brilliant and his spidey-senses were as acute as his Peter’s had been. But they weren’t acute enough to recognize inanimate eyes on him. Tony built discretely following cameras to watch and record Peter’s every move. A few times he managed to actually ‘bump into’ the boy while he was out getting coffee right before his time in Tony’s lab. The excuse had to be carefully crafted because this Tony, like himself, despised the burnt coffee Starbucks had on offer (but this Tony hadn’t wiped the company off the map.) With a roll of his eyes, he claimed that Pepper loved their syrupy concoctions and he was bringing a peace offering after his latest blunder. 

Peter-199999 was about as close to perfect as Tony had found in all of his searching. He would break easily, but Tony only wanted to shatter his core personality so far. He didn’t want to ruin the parts of him that were already so much like _his_ Peter’s were. He just needed to overlay his Peter on top of Peter-199999. So it had to be handled _delicately._

It had been awhile since Tony had to handle anything delicately. The world snapped to his commands, no matter how harsh they were or how crudely given. This would be like hatching a new baby bird. It had to be carefully incubated. Monitored for optimal hatching conditions. Then the fledgling had to be carefully nurtured. The baby bird had to be hand-reared to accept its master. But if handled delicately, the bird that emerged would be _perfect._

So, never one to not overstretch a metaphor, Tony built an egg. The floor was slightly flattened, but from around it, the walls curved upward so that no edge or corner could be found. So that the occupant would have no stimulation of finding the limits of his confinement. 

Environmental systems were hidden high above where the boy could reach. Designed so that no gust of air would ever blow across his skin but that skin would never feel warm or cool, just the ideal temperature for nakedness. Specifically for Peter’s nakedness, gauged by the brief touch their hands made at Starbucks one day. 

There had to be panels, absolutely smooth to even the most sensitive touch, to allow for a drain during cleaning periods and in case of an accident. To allow for a door that he would eventually enter. To allow for a smaller door through which solid food would eventually be provided. 

A light source had to be installed, both a general light from above and a single, much smaller light nearer the floor. But throughout the early stages, the egg would be in complete darkness. Developing the material to coat the inside of the egg took almost a week. 

It had to be soft enough that the boy couldn’t hurt himself. Soft enough to lay on without discomfort. But _not_ able to be scratched or torn or pulled apart with fingers or teeth. He colored it with a black that was almost completely absorbant to light. Any light would come directly from the source and not from reflections. 

The egg had to be absorbant of sound so that any sound would seem directionless and all-encompassing. 

Any thing, any light, any sound, any touch that was given to Peter while he was within the egg had to come from one source only: Tony.

Planning the capture was easier. He needed to render the boy unconscious with minimal damage to his body. He had to make sure that the boy’s sensory deprivation began even before he was placed in his egg. Goggles, earplugs, carefully managed touch. He wouldn’t regain consciousness until he was in Tony’s branch of the multiverse. 

Of course he sent his most trusted and capable men to handle the kidnapping. Bucky was able to slip the drug into Peter’s coffee. The girl making it was too busy flirting with him to notice. After the first sip, even before it caused unconsciousness, the drug dampened Peter’s spidey-sense to where Steve and Bucky could follow him on the way to Stark Tower. They were right there to prevent the crowd from noticing that Peter had slumped to the ground when he passed out. They were right there to help the boy to his feet, looking like three clumsy tourists who didn’t know not to block the street, walking arm in arm, heading to Grand Central. In the crowds rushing for their trains, they disappeared and no one noticed.

When Peter regained consciousness, he began to scream. With Tony walking alongside, no one noticed the beautiful boy in black goggles as he cried out for help and struggled in the strong hands of Rogers and Barnes. Tony’s hand itched to touch but he didn’t; not before he had Peter in the controlled environment of his egg.

Even there, he didn’t touch. Well, he didn’t touch _much._ He cut Peter’s clothes off of him. He wasn’t sure what the removal would reveal. Peter-199999 had never been seduced by his inferior self. But to Tony’s delight, his observations showed that Peter had never been touched by _anyone._ When the last of Peter’s clothes were removed, made more difficult by his struggling and twisting. Tony shot the two men glares when his scissors almost nicked Peter’s perfect, unblemished, pale skin. 

Naked, Peter was too much to resist. Tony ran his hands over the boy who was so like the boy who had been taken from him. His back caressed, the two men turned him over so that Tony could touch the front of the boy. It was all Tony could do to not do more than simply touch. Peter-199999 was ideal in _every_ way. Exactly the same size that his Peter was. Deliciously small and adorably cute in its miniaturized image of a normal man’s endowment. He might not do more, but he did touch. 

Peter screamed louder, begging him to stop. Oh the way his own Peter had begged in the beginning. But he didn’t want to break his boy all over again in that way. Tony wanted a replacement for his boy the way he had been when he lost him. Soft and willing and eager. Desperately in love with him and appreciative of Tony’s love in return.

When he’d satisfied himself of Peter’s perfection, he left Barnes and Rogers to the work of preparing him for his first few hours of sensory deprivation. Tony watched and listened as Peter begged the two men restaining him continuously through his shower, recoiling at Barnes’ soft touch while Steve held him firm. 

His screams reaching impossibly loud volume and higher pitch than before when time came to clean him inside as well as out. The narrow tube — Tony wanted nothing large inside his virgin boy — was gently inserted into his ass and his stomach filled with water. The men stepped to the side of him and Rogers pressed hard on Peter’s belly, forcing the water from him. The procedure was repeated several more times, with Peter screaming and protesting and fighting the process throughout its entirety. 

A smaller tube was inserted in the opening of Peter’s little cock as his bladder was emptied. Then he was cleaned of the mess that had been made of him, and the egg’s floor was roughly washed down with the showerhead. 

There was nothing erotic about the function of preparing Peter’s body. It was simply a necessity if Peter was to have the longest initial, most important, period available of sensory deprivation. Eventually he’d need to be rendered unconscious for his body to be nourished, eliminated, and taken care of again. Then regularly for the same. But by then, Peter’s mind would be distorted by the first several hours of deprivation. He wouldn’t notice when the gas would lightly gust in to knock him out. He wouldn’t feel it if he fell to the soft floor of his eggshell. He wouldn’t trust his own senses.

For the first hour of struggle, Peter had to be bound. It provided him with a touch, but it was necessary. He was held while each of his limbs were shackled. Then Rogers and Barnes cleaned the eggshell more thoroughly. Another sense was stimulated, that of smell, but Peter was still screaming and pulling at his cuffs. Tony doubted he realized much beyond his plight. The egg clean once again, the drain sealed seamlessly, Rogers and Barnes left the enclosure through the door, which sealed itself after them. The environmental systems removed any lingering scents, of disinfectant or of the two men. 

Nothing remained but Peter, bound tightly, held lightlessly and soundlessly. Tony watched him scream and struggle. He watched his screams falter. He watched his struggles halt. He watched him fall into counting time. The version of Peter he’d kidnapped was a genius. He knew that marking time was important to save his sense of self. But Tony knew that it wouldn’t last. It lasted longer than most though. Peter made it to almost an hour before losing his count and needing to start again. He made it less that time. Less the third. The fourth he didn’t even make five minutes. 

Tony smiled as his boy, his _future_ boy, fell into irregular bouts of his former struggle. He watched tears flow from below his goggles. He listened to his sobs. He listened to his eager, but false, promises to please. But he noticed an irritation on Peter’s cheeks from beneath the tear-wet confines of his goggles.

The room surrounding the egg was kept in darkness and also painted with light absorbing black. Tony had the geography of both room and egg memorized. He shut the room door behind him and the blackness was absolute. The egg opened, absolutely silently, to a touch of a remote. Tony walked in. Peter was having a bout of screaming and crying. Tony caressed his cheek and the boy fell silent. How he longed to comfort him. But they weren’t there yet. Instead he took the same blunted scissors he used on Peter’s clothes and cut the goggles away. 

Peter hung silently, limply, accepting, in suspension. Not even thanking Tony for the ease of his minor discomfort. With Peter’s silence, Tony also removed the earplugs. Then he turned and made his way out of the egg, sealing it, and left the room beyond. 

Much as Tony wanted to do nothing but watch Peter developing in his egg, there were matters that middle management couldn’t handle. He cursed at each one that took him away from his monitors, and his decisions reflected those curses. No one knew why, it had been almost two years since Peter’s death, but the earth’s ruler had gone beyond capriciousness, and even beyond cruelty. The distant parts of his realm were in open revolt. Tony released Peter’s bonds, withdrew them into the egg and sealed their ports, and went off to deal with those who needed to be taught exactly _who_ was in charge.

He hadn’t wanted to be gone for so long. While he was, Barnes and Rogers made sure that Peter was taken care of. He was safe inside his eggshell and the two men tended his body on a regular schedule, while Peter was unconscious. The task was certainly less than pleasant, but there was no one he trusted more. He trusted Barnes’ conditioning and he trusted Rogers devotion to Barnes. At least as much as he trusted anyone since his Peter was gone. 

Tony’s absence was good for one thing. Instead of sitting there watching for the metaphorical pot to boil, when he returned, Peter was ready for the next stage of his conditioning. The soft beauty was still there from Peter-199999 as was the desire he had for _something, anything._ But he was stripped down to bare essences. Ready and waiting for his transformation.

He sat watching on the monitors as he began turning on the small light. A pinprick at first. Peter’s eyes, accustomed to nothing but darkness for a week, had to be adjusted slowly. He watched Peter explore his body and the confines of his eggshell as the light grew from that pinprick. It was almost two hours before Tony brought the level of light up to half a foot-candle. 

“Hello, Peter.” Tony kept his voice calm, soft, smooth. He watched Peter try to find the source of the sound like he’d found the source of the light. There was none for him to find. Tony’s voice came from everywhere, surrounding the boy, caressing him the way he wished his hands could. 

“Hello.” Peter’s voice didn’t sound like his Peter’s. It took Tony by surprise until he remembered how much screaming the boy did. And that even his screams had stopped before Tony took off on his mission. Of course Peter’s voice didn’t sound right yet.

“How do you feel?” Tony asked. He was looking for a very specific answer. A non-answer.

“Where am I? Who are you? What is this?” Peter’s questions flew fast and hoarse, one after the other, pleading but with an undertone of anger and demand. 

Not the answer Tony was looking for. “I’m sorry. Not yet.”

A week hadn’t been long enough. There was still too much resistance left in Peter. Another mission took him away for another four days. He had to be careful and not leave Peter for so long that he broke irreparably. When he got home, he didn’t review the monitors, he went straight downstairs to Peter.

“Hello Peter,” Tony said, brightly, hopefully. The boy’s voice when he answered was more like his own. Tony suspected he’d been talking to himself inside the egg. Whether he heard himself or not, given the state of his disrupted senses, he’d learn when he had time to review the recordings. 

“How do you feel?” He knew he shouldn’t let his hopefulness show in his tone. But having Peter so near, but still so far, ached.

“I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry. Not yet,” Tony said, saddened, but sticking to his script.

There were places he needed to go, things he needed to do. He delegated. He had what was left of the Avengers working for him. He sent Ronin to handle the rough things. Natasha to handle the delicate things, and the others to handle everything else. Only Rogers and Barnes he kept with him to help him with Peter. No one else knew about the boy in the egg but the three of them.

“Hello Peter,” Tony said after three days.

“Hello.” The boy’s voice broke, almost like a desperate sob. 

Tony watched him searching for his voice, a needy expression on his face. It was a promising sign. “Are you lonely?”

“Not now. Please stay?” Unlike the false pleading he did early on, Peter’s voice was sincere in his desire.

“I’m sorry. Not yet.” It almost broke Tony’s heart to have to walk away. But his many experiments on his less-willing subjects showed that if they were still asking for things, even if they were asking for him, they weren’t ready yet. He never had any problem walking away from them wanting him. But walking away from _Peter_ wanting him? Even tormenting the rebellion members Ronin brought home wouldn’t alleviate that pain. Tony went straight down into his workshop and wasn’t seen for five days.

“Hello Peter,” Tony said when he finally trusted himself enough to return.

Peter didn’t answer. He slithered around on the floor of his eggshell. The only sign of his own desire was the outstretching of his arms. It was still too much. But they were close.

“Hello,” Tony said the next day, omitting the boy’s name. Their name was the last bit of identity to leave a person. There were no words in answer to his. There was no pleading reach. There was nothing. Peter was ready, but couldn’t be told so. Another day had to pass. Tony’s research had been extensive.

“I’m sorry. Not yet.” For the first time in over two years, people working in his tower saw him smiling in the elevator up to the penthouse.

He’d been too eager. When he went into the egg the next day and touched Peter’s face, the boy leaned into his touch. Things were progressing according to schedule. They were near to completion. Reprogramming could begin soon. Knowing that made it easier to walk away from the feel of Peter’s skin against his palm. “I’m sorry. Not yet.” 

It was only six hours before Tony entered the egg again. “Hello.”

Peter lay perfectly still and didn’t respond at all to Tony’s voice. He was ready.

An hour later, Tony walked into the darkness of the egg. For the first time since he brought the boy there, he touched his body. His hand slid over soft skin that he couldn’t see. His fingers tangled through long curly hair. His palm ran down the flat of Peter’s chest down to his cock, taking it in his hand, getting no response. “Hello.” Tony kept the smile out of his voice. “You are my thing.” Tony gave the boy a definition for himself.

When he left, he sat at the monitor and watched silent, unacknowledged tears run down Peter’s face.

After the tears stopped, he waited a half hour before activating the speaker. “This is my voice.” Tony kept his tone calm and smooth, the same way he’d been speaking to Peter from the very first word. “This is my command.” Tony let show the anger and frustration he felt when he had to deal with the less competent in his employ. “This is my question?” He phrased the declarative as if it had been an actual question. 

Reprogramming had begun. Peter seemed to have no response, but Tony’s research showed that in this final state, the subject was overly receptive to suggestion. He had to be very careful to stick _exactly_ to his script, in word and tone. He waited ten minutes before he spoke again.

“A voice must be listened to.” Tony spoke the same as always. “A command must be obeyed.” He spoke with command and harshness. “A question must be answered?” The absurd, but necessary, inflection on the simple sentence was kept.

A half hour passed and Tony watched Peter lay on the floor, eyes opened, attentive, waiting but not demanding or needing. Waiting to be used, even if that use was simply listening to his voice.

Tony went into the egg and crouched down next to Peter. “A listened to voice brings touch,” he said in his first tone. He ran his hands over Peter’s body. Gently. Pleasurably. While Peter wasn’t able to have an erection in this state, Tony knew that his touch felt pleasant there. And he knew that his touch, brushing between the boy’s cheeks, felt pleasant there as well. He returned to simply touching Peter’s skin, caressing his face, petting his hair. 

He left and returned in five minutes. “A disobeyed command brings pain,” he said in his second. He pulled Peter up hard by the hair and slapped his face. He let him fall to the ground and left. He stayed gone ten minutes.

“An unanswered question brings pain?” His questioning voice returned. He turned Peter onto his stomach, pulled his arm sharply up, holding his wrist between his shoulders. With his other hand he hit hard on the boy’s ass. He let go and left.

Tony went upstairs and for the first time in a very long time, he slept in his bed. In _his and Peter’s_ bed.

The next morning, he waved away the breakfast that was brought to him and rushed down to the lowest basement level. The boy’s needs had been taken care of three hours before he woke up. The small light had begun to rise soon after he fully regained consciousness. Peter was alert and passive, sitting on the floor of his egg. It was so close to time for him to hatch. There was one final step.

He squatted down in front of Peter. Reaching out, he ran his hand over the boy’s body again. He neither leaned into it nor away from it, but Tony felt a shift in his muscles in response. It was a subconscious reaction to the pleasure of his touch. 

“Hello my thing,” Tony said, not yet giving Peter his name. “When my thing has been good. I may call my thing Peter. When Peter has been very good Peter may feel pleasure if it pleases me to give it to him.” Tony smiled. “Do you recognize me Peter?” He saw a flicker of… something… pass over Peter’s eyes. “I see that you do. Do you know who I am?” The flicker was gone and Tony’s look softened. “I see that you don’t.” He walked away and crouched down again, farther away. “Crawl to me.” Peter crawled and when he arrived, he sat cross-legged in front of him. Tony ran his hand over Peter’s shoulder and down his arm. “Use your voice. Say ‘Yes sir’,” Tony said gently. He waited patiently for Peter to find his disused voice.

“Yes sir.”

“Good Peter.” He cupped Peter’s cheek and held the touch-reward for a long time. “Do you have pain here that I didn’t cause?” Tony asked, placing the flat of his palm over Peter’s stomach. 

“Yes sir.”

Tony stood to leave. He opened the door to the black room beyond. Peter made no attempt to move. “When you ask you will be given something to eat to take away the pain.” He closed the door to the egg.

“May I have something to eat?” Peter asked once the door had shut. 

Tony was surprised to hear ‘I’ from the boy. With other subjects the return of an identity took longer than the simple giving of a name. But then his boy was a genius. He was eager to be hatched. Only one more test, Tony told himself as he went upstairs to leave the testing to his men. For some reason, New York just couldn’t get with the program and stay with it. They were no different from the rest of the world. Tony took off from the top of his Alcatraz tower and flew across the country.

From within his suit, as he blasted a second rebel holdout, he was alerted to Peter’s having finished his bread. He did not ask for more. He was sitting, obediently in the darkness, waiting. Tony’s voice surrounded him. “You may have one of two things. Whichever you choose you will get again. The other you will not.”

“Yes sir.”

“You may have my touch.” Tony paused. “You may have bread.”

“Bread,” Peter answered. 

It wasn’t unexpected.

The last of the New York rebellion died with _his_ Peter’s former best friend MJ. Tony flew home and returned to watching his new Peter on the monitors. He watched him eat many times. After five days, he watched him hesitate before eating. In another three, Tony watched him eat and then cry. Two days later, he watched him take a single bite and then fall into uncontrollable tears. And two days after that, the bread went untouched.

The old bread was taken away and new bread was put inside the small door whenever Peter slept or when he was taken away for body care. Body care no longer included feeding of any kind. For four days, through six mealtimes, the bread went untouched without reaction. For two days after that, the bread went untouched and Peter moved away from it to the far side of his eggshell. He stayed there through another four mealtimes. He cried every time he heard the soft scrape of the bread being pushed into his egg, even though he’d turned his back to it. Each day, his silent tears lasted until he fell asleep.

He slowly brightened the candle light. Tony watched Peter turn and look where the bread appeared. Peter went to sit cross-legged in the middle of the floor. The bright lights at the top of his egg were brought up. When they reached full brightness, Tony entered the shell, bringing behind him a folding chair. He opened it. Before he sat, he caressed Peter’s cheek. 

“Hello, Peter.” Tony smiled and sat in the chair. “You were _very_ good.” He reached down and pulled Peter into his lap. He held him there and buried his face into his curly hair, now much longer than it had been when _his_ Peter — but then _this_ was his Peter now — had been alive.

When he had himself under control, Tony kissed Peter on the forehead. “Do you want to leave me?” 

Peter furrowed his brow. He leaned back and looked at Tony quizzically. “No sir,” he said and then settled against his chest for a moment before sitting back the way he’d been before. Almost as if he’d caught himself wanting something and knew that wanting was wrong.

“You can call me Mister Stark.” Tony said. He smiled blissfully as he brushed Peter’s hair away from his face. 

“Yes Mister Stark.” Peter scanned his face and on seeing his smile, smiled in return.

“I missed you, Peter,” Tony said. His blue eyes sparkled, the moisture there catching the light. He brought Peter in for a kiss. Slowly at first. He surprised himself at his restraint. But then he deepened his kiss and took what he’d been missing. “I missed you so much. You’ve come back to me.”

Peter looked puzzled again. Tony smiled. “I know, baby boy. You never left. You never would leave me.”

“Of course not, Mister Stark.” Peter wrapped his arms around Tony’s chest. “I could never leave you.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Starker blog on tumblr is [starker-stories](https://starker-stories.tumblr.com/).  
> Come on by and visit.


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